CHAPTER ONE
Monday, December 1
IN A STATE of euphoria, Raoul Fontesquieu left the apartment at the Château Fontesquieu in Vence, France, and headed for his office. He was now officially on vacation from work. Once he’d gathered up a few things and had talked to his cousin Dominic, he had big plans. But on the way, he heard his cell ring. It was only six in the morning!
A grimace marred his features when he saw his father’s name on the caller ID before picking up. “Qu’est ce qui se passe?”
“I’m calling from the Sacred Heart. Your gran’pere was transported to the hospital a few minutes ago. He’s in room 407 and isn’t expected to live past the next hour. We expect you here now!”
Matthieu Fontesquieu, Raoul’s intransigent father, didn’t know how to do anything but demand obedience. Being his parents’ only child, he’d borne the emotional scars of such treatment for as long as he could remember.
Over the last week the family had sensed this day was coming. Armand Fontesquieu, the eighty-five year-old, impossibly autocratic CEO of the Domaine Fontesquieu in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, was drawing his last breath.
News of his death would ring throughout Provence and the wine world, but Raoul wouldn’t mourn him. As a little boy he’d tried once to establish a relationship with him, but had been shot down and had never tried again.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Once he’d hung up, Raoul turned his car around and drove out of the Fontesquieu estate for the hospital. Upon reaching it, he took the elevator to the fourth floor and strode down the hall. His mother and father had been watching for him. She seemed particularly anxious, which was not a good sign. Something was up. He just didn’t know what.
“Your gran’pere is waiting for you,” his father murmured.
Waiting? While he was on the verge of death?
Raoul frowned, looking around for Dominic. Neither he nor his dozen other cousins were here. “What’s going on?”
“You’ll understand in a minute. Let’s go in.”
Raoul entered the hospital room filled with his aunts and uncles and saw his grandfather lying in the bed hooked up to IVs and oxygen.
His father nudged him. “Tell him you’ve arrived.”
He was sick of his father’s orders, but now wasn’t the time to defy him. He walked over to the bed. “Gran’pere? It’s Raoul. I’m here.”
The old man didn’t open his eyes. How sad that even now, Raoul couldn’t conjure any feelings for someone so cold.
“Raoul?” He spoke in a loud enough voice to reach everyone. “I want the family to hear from my own lips that you are now the CEO of the Fontesquieu Domaine.” In another minute his grandfather, plagued by liver disease, exhaled and was gone.
His father t
ook hold of his arm. “The family has arrangements to make,” he whispered. “Stay available. We’ll talk later today about your new position and get you installed.”
He sucked in his breath. The last position Raoul would ever want would be CEO of the Fontesquieu family wine business. He was already busy with plans for a future that had nothing to do with the family.
Before dying, that grasping excuse for a human being had colluded with his favorite son Matthieu to put Raoul in charge for one reason only. By making him the CEO, it was their last bribe to bend Raoul to their will.
They assumed this grand gesture would force him to call off his divorce to Sabine Murat. Both families had been fighting it to preserve all the Murat millions with the Fontesquieu fortune. Both fortunes together enabled the families to continue to buy more assets.
But no coup could have accomplished what they’d hoped for. Raoul had never loved Sabine. Now it was over and finished, grace à Dieu. His divorce from Sabine Murat had been finalized yesterday afternoon. That was all he’d been waiting for.
This morning Raoul was free to embrace his new life with his precious eighteen-month-old son.
Overjoyed that Alain’s existence no longer had to be kept a secret from the world, Raoul left the hospital for the modern Fontesquieu office building where all the family head offices were housed, including his own as president of marketing and sales. It was located behind the immense seventeenth-century château on the estate of the famous Fontesquieu vineyards drawing tourists from around the world.
He phoned Dominic. They were closer than brothers. It was Dominic who’d insisted Raoul stay with him in his suite at the château throughout his two months’ separation from Sabine. During that period Dominic had gotten married and moved out for good. Now it was Raoul’s turn to leave the château and never come back. This morning he had so much to tell Dominic, he was going to explode if they couldn’t talk right now.
To his relief, Dominic, the funds manager for the Fontesquieu corporation, had opened the door of his own office suite to wait for him. “Come on in. I only heard the news about our grandfather a little while ago. It seems wrong not to mourn him, but I don’t have those feelings.”
“Tell me about it,” Raoul muttered. “I got the call at six. Papa ordered me to get to the hospital. I arrived just in time for our grandfather to announce to the room that I was the new CEO before he took his last breath. You and I both know the reason why.”
Grim faced, his cousin nodded. “Even with death approaching, they planned it down to the last minute.”
“He and Papa don’t give up, but as you know, I would never have taken over, and before long I’ll be leaving the family business. The good news is, last night I got a call from my attorney Horace. The divorce decree was granted yesterday at the end of the day. I would have called you, but the news came too late to disturb you. Dom—I’m a free man and can live like one!”
“Raoul—” Dominic hugged him so hard he almost knocked him over.
“It wiped out a good portion of my assets, but it was worth it.”
“If you need help, I’m your man.”
“I know that and am grateful, but my new business is growing and I’m already recouping. Papa said he’d call me later in order to install me, but I have news for him. When he phones, I’ll refuse to accept it and wish him luck in his new position—the one he’s always coveted. Now he can be both comptroller and CEO.”
Dominic nodded. “We might have my father, three uncles and two aunts, all Fontesquieux, who are more than capable of taking over Grandfather’s empire, but you and I both know your father is the one who’ll run everything now. He’s made in the old man’s hard-boiled image with my father a clone of both of them.”
Raoul stared at him. “Good luck to him. Little does he know I’m resigning soon. Already I’ve gathered new clients for the company I’ve started. Over the last two months the list has been growing.”
“You’re a genius.”